First email sent from space - help please! Posted on: Tue May 07, 2013 6:30 pm

Hi, everyone! I'm afraid I don't know much about space technology, and I'm reading about the first email sent from space:

On 28 August 1991, astronauts Shannon Lucid and James C Adamson (both USA) beamed an email back to Earth from the NASA space shuttle Atlantis. The message read: “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here… send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby … we’ll be back!”

"RCS" is Reaction Control System. The small rockets that allow the shuttle to maneuver in space. "cryo" is cryogenic. Not sure what the reference is to specifically but the STS used cyrogenic liquid oxygen and hydrazine fuel for its secondary propulsion systems and power generation. Those consumables are what really limited a shuttle's time in orbit. So maybe they were saying they wanted more so they could stay in space longer?

I did a quick check online and something is wrong with the dates. STS-43 was in orbit from 2 August-11 August 1993, so I don't know how they could have sent the first email. Maybe it was 2 August or 8 August, but not 28 August. Where did you find this fact?